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Winners of the 2017 Whistler Film Festival were announced at the Awards Celebration this morning on the final day of the 17th annual Festival. Ian Lagarde’s first feature All You Can Eat Buddha and Jason and Carlos Sanchez’s A Worthy Companion tied for the $15,000 cash prize presented by the Directors Guild of Canada, British Columbia and the $15,000 post-production prize sponsored by Encore Vancouver in the 14th edition of the coveted Borsos Competition for Best Canadian Feature Film. The jury states “each in their own way convey unique visions and creative storytelling the jury believes have made and will make powerful contributions to the world of cinema.”A Worthy Companion

A Worthy Companion takes a fresh and new perspective that explores the complexity and humanity within the predator, victim relationship. This film questions how we perpetuate manipulative power dynamics between adult and child through the inner struggle of our female protagonists.

“It is exciting to see a new wave of Canadian first-time feature directors play with genres and take risks,” Tiff senior programmer Steve Gravestock said. “This year’s line-up has a truly international feel to it, too, with a number of features shot all over the globe — something that also

At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the annual event will pay tribute to its home country with a number of options that span the past, present, and future of Canadian creativity. Per usual, the fest has unveiled a slew of titles that will make up its Canadian feature slate — 26 in all — with an eye towards advancing not only established Canadian filmmakers, but rising stars as well.

This year’s Canadian lineup boasts one of the highest numbers of feature directorial debuts ever, as well as one of the highest numbers of films from Western Canada in recent years. Over 30% of the titles have a first-time feature director, while seven out of nine are Tiff alumni.

The 2D feature will be mainly based on Charlotte Salomon’s “Life? Or Theatre?” — an autobiographical series of 769 paintings which the young artist created between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, where she lived before she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26.

“Staying true to Charlotte’s spirit and body of work, our film will be punctuated with fantasy, dream-like elements and the animation designs will be minimalist, in a similar vein as (Remi Chayé’s) ‘Long Way North.’ We’ll be animating and interpreting her paintings, placing the emphasis on the story which is extraordinarly moving,” said Bergeron, adding that “Charlotte” will play to young adults as well as family audiences, as “Waltz With Bashir.”

Bergeron is attending the Annecy Festival this week to pitch the project to potential partners. “The theme of ‘Charlotte’ is ‘how art can save our lives and help us stay sane;’ and it still resonates today,” noted Bergeron.

Julia Rosenberg at Toronto-based January Films is producing “Charlotte,” which will mark the producer’s first toon pic. Rosenberg has produced feature films and documentaries, notably Alan Zweig’s “15 Reasons to Live” which was nominated at Hot Docs.

A pair of Canadian writers, Erik Rutherford and Miriam Toews, whose best-known novels are “A Complicated Kindness” and “All My Puny Sorrows,” are writing the screenplay.

Bergeron said the project was being supported by the Charlotte Salomon Foundation, the trustee of Charlotte’s work.

Telefilm Canada is financing the development of “Charlotte,” whose budget is in the 10 million Euros range. The production will be carried out of Canada and France.

Charlotte Salomon is also the subject of a prize-winning novel, “Charlotte,” penned by one of France’s top authors, David Foenkinos, and published in January 2015. Salomon’s paintings were exhibited just last month at the Massena Museum in Nice.

The Irish-Canadian co-production took home nine prizes at Canada’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Irish-Canadian co-production Room dominated the Canadian Screen Awards on Sunday night, winning nine prizes including best film for producers David Gross and Ed Guiney.

Lead actress Brie Larson repeated her triumph at this year’s Oscars and BAFTAs by winning best actress, while breakout star Jacob Tremblay took best actor.

Accepting the award from veteran Christopher Plummer, 77 years his senior, the young actor said: “This is amazing. I can’t believe a kid like me won against a bunch of amazing talent. Christopher Plummer, you’re a legend.”

The film also took awards for director Lenny Abrahamson, Emma Donoghue’s adapted screenplay, and Joan Allen’s supporting performance, as well as prizes for editing, make-up and production design.

In the nine consecutive years I’ve attended the Toronto International Film Festival, it remains an elusive monstrosity of an event. With its hundreds of offerings, it’s a gluttonous buffet for the committed cineaste, a playground of auteurs mixed with unknown quantities. Even after having attended Sundance and Cannes, navigating the selections still somehow feels like ‘catching up’ with entries from Berlin, Locarno, and the concurrent Venice. And, therefore, everyone’s Toronto experience is bound to seem a bit different, even as streamlined as the festival is as it remains one of the most press and public friendly film festivals in existence.

Of course, there’s always complaints (or questions) as to what doesn’t make an appearance at the festival, and we’re always subject to the tastes of various programmers. For instance, why exactly room could not have been made for Polish master Andrzej Zulawski’s first

A big congrats to Lenny Abrahamson's "Room" for winning the Grolsch's People's Choice Awards at the recently concluded 40th Toronto International Film Festival! It's safe to say that "Room" will see a future at the Academy Awards. Previous winners that went on to grab the Best Picture Oscar were "Slumdog Millionaire," "The King's Speech," and "12 Years A Slave."

Here's the complete winners and press release from Tiff:

The Toronto International Film Festival® today announced award winners from the 40th Festival, which wraps up this evening. See a free screening of Room, the winner of the Grolsch People's Choice Award, Sunday, September 20 at 8pm.

As the Toronto International Film Festival wraps up its 40th incarnation, the winners of the festival’s 2015 event have now been announced. Previous winners at the festival have included Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Gareth Evans’ The Raid, and Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways. Thus, many film fans have looked at the awards as an indicator of what to look out for in subsequent months when theatrical and VOD release dates get announced. The winners of Tiff 2015 are as follows.

While Tiff festival programmers naturally like to boast, and some in the biz certainly consider the fest’s People’s Choice Award as a good luck charm for Best Picture Oscar winner gold, the top ticket stub collecting nod certainly augments the prospects of a given film title and the A24 folks must be feeling pretty good about the title they invested in on early. With terrific buzz coming out from Telluride, Lenny Abrahamson’s Room appears to be covered in magic fairy dust. The Brie Larson starring imprisonment family drama would have not been crowned with the top Tiff Award if it weren’t for a last minute screening addition to replace the canceled public screening of Mathew Cullen’s London Fields. That Friday night showing cemented the win over Pan Nalin’s Indian film Angry Indian Goddesses (First Runner Up) and Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (Second Runner Up).

With the 40th Toronto International Film Festival concluding today, the winners have been unveiled. Earning the top prize was the Brie Larson-led drama Room, which A24 will release on October 16th. Other winners included the first-person actioner Hardcore, Stephen Dunn‘s coming-of-age drama Closet Monster, and Hurt in the first-ever Platform section.

Check out the full list of winners below, with reviews where applicable, and catch up with all of our coverage (and more to come) here.

The Toronto Film Festival threw a bit of a curve ball Sunday, announcing that Lenny Abrahamson’s “Room” had claimed this year’s People’s Choice Award. The prize, often an awards season harbinger, has gone to films such as “American Beauty,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The King’s Speech” and “12 Years a Slave” in the past.

The bestseller adaptation began its journey at the Telluride Film Festival two weeks ago, where it was one of the most popular films of the fest. It is in a prime position to be A24’s first best picture nominee to date, with Brie Larson a sure-fire leading actress contender and 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay a strong supporting actor possibility.

Most eyes were on Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” for the award, as it is a broadly appealing, thoroughly satisfying drama with stars. It did, however, win the second runner-up designation.

The Toronto International Film Festival has, through its run, divided the films into numerous programmes to better identify and group together like-minded features. One of the new additions to the programme in 2015 will be the Platform selection, which will showcase films with a strong directorial vision. What is unique about this programme is that the selected films, twelve in total, will be judged by a three-person jury during the event, with the top film taking home a $25,000 prize. The first ever group of judges at the 2015 event will be comprised of filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, whose 2000 film Platform was cited as the inspiration for the programme, alongside filmmakers Claire Denis and Agnieszka Holland. The lineup for the Platform was announced today, and can be seen below, alongside their official synopses.

The Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 10-20) has unveiled the 12 titles that will comprise the inaugural line-up for Platform - the new juried programme that champions director-led cinema from around the world.

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